Track Record: Retail P&Ls Since 1999

Every result on this page was made inside a live P&L. These are Steve Webster’s results as an employed operator inside each business. Barking Cat Advisory was founded in July 2026, and this is the record it is built on. Steve Webster has run retail and ecommerce P&Ls since 1999, across the UK, EU, US and GCC, in apparel and footwear, consumer electronics, homewares and publishing, from fast fashion to premium heritage, under start-up, founder-led, PE-backed and PLC ownership. The full record, role by role, is on Steve Webster’s page.

The experience

Retail and ecommerce P&Ls, run since 1999

Markets: UK, EU, US and GCC
Categories: Apparel and footwear, consumer electronics, homewares, publishing
Brands: Fast fashion to premium heritage
Ownership: Start-up, founder-led, PE-backed and PLC

+50%

international growth

Role: Global Ecommerce Director, Barbour

+50% international growth: Global Ecommerce Director, Barbour

Five-year targets, delivered in two

Barbour’s first standalone global ecommerce director, inheriting a channel trading below the brand’s stature and leaning on discount. The decision that mattered: the full-price transition, holding the line against promotional dependency while the top line still had to grow. Over 50% growth across priority international markets, profit contribution up 60% on a flat marketing budget, organic search from 15% to over 30%. Customers bought at full price and came back more often: 1.6 purchases a year, up from 1.3.

22%

of revenue, up from 9%

Role: Ecommerce Director, eXtra

22% of revenue, up from 9%: Ecommerce Director, eXtra

£60m to £240m in three years

eXtra, MENA’s largest electronics retailer: a £1bn PLC where ecommerce sat at 9% of revenue and was treated accordingly. The decisions that mattered: persuading the board to fund brand and editorial content over promotional noise, building a content function from zero to make the business the most trusted voice in its category, and reimagining digital marketing around it: CRM rebuilt on language, category affinity and lifecycle, and performance media at pace, including app acquisition validated by controlled lift studies at 21x ROAS. Digital contribution grew from 9% to 22% within two years at 170% annual growth, and customers who had never trusted buying electronics online made it their first choice.

82%

growth, three years running

Role: Head of Ecommerce, Steinhoff UK

82% growth, three years running: Head of Ecommerce, Steinhoff UK

Negligible to £30m in three years

Steinhoff UK (Bensons for Beds, Harveys Furniture and Cargo Homeshop), the UK’s largest furniture retailer: 400 stores, a business built on Sunday showroom traffic, and an ecommerce channel generating next to nothing. The decisions that mattered: building the channel as a business unit rather than a website, with its own platform, team and P&L, and pioneering measurement that proved digital’s impact on in-store sales, published as a Google case study, turning the store estate from digital’s rival into its beneficiary. Three consecutive years of 82% growth followed. Customers had been shopping across both channels all along. The business finally measured it, and then served it.

120%

year-on-year growth

Roles: Head of Ecommerce; Head of Online

120% year-on-year growth: Head of Ecommerce, Boohoo

Where it started, 1999 to 2014

An early senior ecommerce appointment at Boohoo, a fashion business that grew into one of the UK’s biggest online retailers: 120% year-on-year growth, the first enterprise replatform, and twice named in the Online Fashion 100. Then Hotter Shoes, the UK’s largest footwear brand by volume, taking its US launch to profitability inside three months. Fifteen years of platform builds and turnarounds, mostly before boards had a digital agenda.

The numbers that pay the wages